Muhammad taha al junaid quran 2 hours trial#

The condemned man, his hands tied behind him, was smaller than I expected him to be, and from where I sat, as his guards hustled him along, he looked younger than his seventy-six years. Shortly before the appointed time, Mahmoud Muhammad Taha was led into the courtyard. Two days later President Nimeiry directed the execution for 18 January.Р”Вescribing his hanging, journalist Judith Miller writes:

A special court of appeal approved the sentence on 15 January. The government forbade his unorthodox views on Islam to be discussed in public because it would 'create religious turmoil' or a fitna (sedition). The next day he was sentenced to death along with four other followers (who later recanted and were pardoned) for 'heresy, opposing the application of Islamic law, disturbing public security, provoking opposition against the government, and re-establishing a banned political party.'

Muhammad taha al junaid quran 2 hours trial#

The trial lasted two hours with the main evidence being confessions that the defendants were opposed to Sudan's interpretation of Islamic law. Taha refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court under Sharia, and refused to repent. On 5 January 1985, Taha was arrested for distributing pamphlets calling for an end to Sharia law in Sudan.Р”В«rought to trial on 7 January he was charged with crimes 'amounting to apostasy, which carried the death penalty'. Taha was first tried and found guilty for apostasy in 1967 but the court's jurisdiction was limited to matters of 'personal status'. (There was also a 'Republican Sisters'.) 'Not only did women participate in all their prayers and other religious rituals but were the driving force behind the composition of many hymns and poems.' Arrest and execution Republicans broke the social norm of restricting participation in Sufi rituals to men. The small group scrutinised Islamic/Sudanese rituals, social customs, cultural values and legal practices. To advance his cause, he formed a group known as the Republican Brothers. Taha preached that the Sudanese constitution should be reformed to reconcile 'the individual's need for absolute freedom with the community's need for total social justice.' It accorded, (among other things), equal status to people РІР‚вЂњ whether women or men, Muslim or non-Muslim. While the Medina Qur'an was appropriate in its time to form the essence of the Sharia, he believed the 'original, uncorrupted form' of Islam was the Mecca Qur'an.

True Shariah law, Taha believed, was not fixed, but had the ability 'to evolve, assimilate the capabilities of individual and society, and guide such life up the ladder of continuous development'. Meccan verses, making up the 'Second Message' of Islam, should form the 'basis of the legislation' for modern society.

He believed that the 'Medina Qur'an', and Sharia laws based on them, were 'subsidiary verses' РІР‚вЂњ suitable for the backward society of the 7th century, but 'irrelevant for the new era, the twentieth century', violating the values of equality, religious freedom and human dignity. Taha argued, in effect, the opposite of this classical basis of law. The Meccan verses saying things like 'РІР‚СљYou are only a reminder, you have no dominion over themРІР‚Сњ Medinan speak of the 'duties and norms of behavior' in Islam, such as: РІР‚СљMen are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred one of them over another.' (Q.4:34). The two kinds of verse were often in contradiction. These later Medinan verses, form the basis for much of Sharia, which Taha calls the РІР‚Сљfirst message of Islam.РІР‚Сњ Taha believed that they 'were a historical adaptation to the reality of life in a seventh-century Islamic city-state, in which 'there was no law except the sword.'РІР‚Сњ The Meccan verses are 'suffused with a spirit of freedom and equality, according to Taha, they present Islam in its perfect form' the Medinian verses are 'full of rules, coercion, and threats, including the orders for jihad'. Muslims believe that Quran is made up of Meccan surahs (chapters of the Quran believed to have been revealed before the Hijra-the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammed and his followers from Mecca to Medina) - and Medinan surahs (chapters believed to have been revealed after the Hijra). His message argues that contrary to mainstream Islam, the classical shariah (Islamic law) was intended for Muhammad's rule in Medina and not for all times and places. Taha developed what he called 'Second Message of Islam' after a period of prolonged 'religious seclusion'. In 1945, he founded an anti-monarchical political group, the Republican Party, and was twice imprisoned by the British authorities. After working briefly for Sudan Railways he started his own engineering business. He was educated as a civil engineer in a British-run university in the years before Sudan's independence. Taha was born in Rufaa, a town on the eastern bank of the Blue Nile, 150 kilometres (93Р’В mi) south of Khartoum.